


The Architect

by TheGan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGan/pseuds/TheGan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a man dies you’re only left collecting shards of possibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Architect

There is so much to see in the universe. Universes. Worlds and worlds made of snow and crystal and children’s dreams. Towers made of oblivion and mountains made of pure bliss. And then there are Other Worlds. Worlds that aren’t suspend on circling water that needs only a slight push to change his patterns in something terrible and beautiful. Worlds that are more distant than a lost memory. Worlds that aren’t really truly there to begin with.  
In some of this Worlds the Doctor is dead.  
Not in every Worlds, mind you, there is one where he’s a young-yet-old mad man with a box always running, always afraid to look back, another where he travels with a loyal companion and the robotic ghost of a man that once was.  
The man called the Architect gives them a passing glance, but there’s longing in his eyes. So he quickly skips to the others.  
In this one the Doctor is shoot to death by the Daleks, in this he turns himself into a human to survive and dies happy of old age. He dies during the Time War, at the hands of the Timelords, fighting for his friends or fighting to destroy the universe. He’s feared and adored and hated and when he dies it’s never easy, never clean, never simple. Except for that one world in which he was not quite him.  
The Architect looks at them, looks at the blood, at the gore and at the burned and broken flesh and closes his eyes. This is not what he had been looking for. A blink. A page is turned and other stories fills the white room screens. The Architect looks up and finds himself killing the Doctor.  
A bullet, a laser, a device that kills through fear, a push, a fire, a betrayal that rips four hearts instead of two. Sometimes in these other worlds he has taken to call himself the Master, sometimes the Doctor is the Valeyard.  
Sometimes the Doctor kills the Architect first.  
Sometimes the Architect whish that his world have been one of them.  
He had projected the device as a passing fancy during his school’s days, only because of something foolish that Theta had said and his inability to ignore a dare. The Architect sort of smile at that thought. How many wrong choices could be summed by one. But he’s glad for having built it. The clock on the device spins and spins and time is turned back and forth and the Architect is still trying to pry some sense out of it.  
His Doctor is dead. Just like in these other worlds. There must be a reason.  
He closes his eyes. Something is leaking out of them. Not tears. Something older, something darker.  
His device is still running, ripping, scratching and tearing holes in the reality itself. The Architect doesn’t care about it, not anymore. There is nothing for him to live for only the windows in other’s lives.  
For the first time in his long life he feels old. 


End file.
